First of all, let me just say that I, hands down, heard the most annoying cell phone ring tone EVER while in Mexico. One of our drivers had a baby screaming, or crying, or maybe it was laughing (??) as his ring tone for his phone. Lets just say that man gets a lot of phone calls in a short period of time. One would hope that it is at least a recording of one of his own kids…

The ruins in Coba are set back in the jungle. The ruins date 600-900 AD and it is estimated to have had one of the largest populations of ancient Mayan cities (around 50,000 people). The grand pyramid (Nohoch Mul) at Coba is the only ruin that people are allowed to climb in the Yucatan and once at the top you get an amazing view over the jungle canopy. There are actually only a few ruins that have been excavated and uncovered at Coba, the rest (an estimated 6,000) are still buried under centuries of jungle overgrowth.

The tour guide mentioned Mel Gibson’s new movie, Acocalypto at one point. He claimed that the movie was actually fairly accurate to the Mayan Kingdom. He said that the only thing that was blatantly wrong was that at one point in the movie when the priest sacrifices one of the victims, the movie shows the priest being clean when in reality he would have been very bloody from the decapitation. Decapitation sacrifices were so central to the Mayan culture that there are skull carvings and sacrifice ritual carvings throughout the ruins.

I was actually surprised by the smell of the jungle. It wreaks. It smells like rotting…fruit, I guess. The amount of birds singing was overwhelming and equally frustrating because I could rarely spot them. I never realized how hard it would be to try to bird through thick jungle canopies. I probably only saw 10% of the different birds that I could hear singing in the canopy.

The picture below is of a weaver on his nest.

Equally disappointing was the lack of insect abundance that I could see. The only thing flying around was butterflies, which made the ruins seem somewhat magical. But other than that, I definitely missed the presence of flies (which are definitely abundant in North American forests during the day), beetles, parasitoids, and the like. I have a sneaking suspicion though that if I had returned to the jungle at night, it would be a completely different insect story being told. Most insects probably retreat during the day under the debris on the jungle floor avoiding the heat or are high up hiding in the canopy.

The lepidopteran below is mimicking a dead leaf as part of its natural defense against predation.

I’m not sure what species of caterpillars these are, but I have solicited the help of a friend who may know and will fill y’all in soon.

This last picture is of a termite nest up in the canopy.

Josh and I went horseback riding today…and the guides said it would be ‘though the jungles, mangroves, and out to the beach’. I don’t recall going through anything that jumped out as being a “jungle”, which made me come back to the hotel and look up the definition of a jungle. In my mind I picture thick vegetation and more rain forest-y type habitats. But according to Wikipedia, a jungle is “a dense forest in a hot climate”. Its also explained as such:

The word jungle originates from a Sanskrit word jangala, meaning “desert”. In many languages of the Indian subcontinent, including Indian English, it is generally used to refer to any wild, untended or uncultivated land, including forest, scrub, or desert landscapes.

A ‘desert’ is something I definitely felt on the ride. So that being the case, I definitely went through a hot climatic zone through some scrub forest. Once at the beach some people actually went swimming with their horses…not me though, gotta protect the camera.

Here are some selected photos from the day.

A tropical mockingbird

Some unidentified species of Ibis, the picture kind of sucks but give a girl some credit, I was trying to wrangle my horse with one hand while taking the photo with the other hand.

A close-up of a butterfly’s head.

I didn’t purposely put up a blurry photo of Japanese decor, there is a dragonfly in the right hand side of the photo.

Here is the same species of buprestid that I took a picture of the first day…this time in natural light.

A longhorn beetle

And finally, a leaf beetle (Chrysomelidae)…and as an added perk, it is demonstrating ‘reflex bleeding’ in its leg joints. The leaf beetle family uses this behavior as a defense mechanism.

Oh, and apparently the hotel staff do not have enough to do in a day because look at what they made us out of towels when they came to clean the room yesterday. Not gonna lie, it was kind of creepy.

Xcaret was an all day event but overall not too riveting. Josh and I may have been the only 2 people there who were not all that concerned with the staged sites and were more interested in seeing native insects and birds.

We saw several mariposas (which means butterflies in Spanish) and a longhorn beetle of some variety.

We also saw abejas nativas, which means native bees.

The bees are found in dried tree trunks throughout the jungles. These native bees cannot sting, which makes it a lot easier to collect honey than it is for us in the U.S. This bee was used by the Mayans as a basic ingredient in their meals and for indigenous medicine.

Another thing I noticed while out here is that the resort paints all their trees with this white sealant. I finally asked a staff member what that was all about and all they could tell me was that it was to protect the trees from a ‘bug’.

On to the birds…I think this first one is a golden-fronted woodpecker.

The next couple images are of a motmot.

An Orange Oriole.

A Great Kiskadee.

Xcaret has a sea turtle rearing facility…lots of babies and huge adults.

We also visited a Saint Francis of Assisi Chapel.

Xcaret also had a mushroon growing farm. I think the concept is a little bizzare…especially since I think mushrooms are gross. The mushrooms in the picture below are oyster mushrooms and are edible.

Lastly, here is a pretty waterfall we saw.

As it turns out, it is really hot and humid in Mexico. This being said, my hair is going to be in permanent frizz mode. My camera has been wigging out having to go from the air conditioned room to the hot/humid weather…it takes about 20min for the lenses to stop collecting condensation. And I just may be the only person you know that can go to Mexico white as a ghost and return from Mexico all the same.

Today the kind hotel staff booked several meetings with different people for us all day long in order to coordinate the activities for the rest of the week, so we haven’t been able to really leave the resort area. But we did manage to scope out the beach in front of our room.

But just within the resort area I did manage to find some friends.
Magnificent Frigatebird

Great-tailed Grackle

Osprey

Its definitely a little unique seeing Iguanas at the beach. And lastly, as we were walking back to our room after one of our meetings I found this buprestid beetle walking along the pathway.

Tomorrow we hit up Xcaret. I have a feeling it may be a little more touristy for my liking but I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m writing you looking out at this gorgeous view of the Caribbean sea from the balcony of our hotel room in Mexico. This past week was one big wedding celebration for us, a whole gaggle of friends and family came in from 13 different states (and even Canada ). The week started off a little mellow with Wii battles and barbeque’s with smores.

And grew into arm wrestling contests and poker games…

The day before the wedding we had a group of 20+ go out for a whale watch out of provincetown at the tip of the cape.

The whale watch started a little slow…but quickly picked up after a hand full of our friends got a nice salt spray from the ocean.

We saw several sea birds that included Northern Gannets, Wilson’s storm petrels, and sooty shearwaters. To see more pictures of the birds click here. Make sure to double click on the thumbnail to see the larger photos.

And of course, there were minke and humpback whales. You can actually see the little fish jumping out of the whale’s mouth…and see that the gull has taken the opportunity to grab an easy lunch.

To see more pictures of the whales, click here. Same deal here, make sure you click on the thumbnails to see the larger photos when scrolling through.

I’ll be posting pictures from the wedding and reception soon for those of you who couldn’t be there, as well as pictures of the flora and fauna of the Riviera Maya as soon as Josh and I start exploring.

I am finding myself in a peculiar situation this week. Josh and I are getting married on Sat and we have this week and next off for vacation. I don’t think I have had a vacation during the summer since high school because I have always been working during the field season. I’m not quite sure what to do with all my free time now.

So, for our first day off Josh and I decided to go kayaking early this morning before the heavy Cape Cod tourist traffic picked up. Check out our tight ride.

We went to a new spot that is a cedar swamp, which by the way is my new favorite spot, and I brought my camera despite Josh’s reservations about me falling in the water and ruining the camera and lenses. Good thing I did too because we saw some great birds. Let me just say though, it is quite the challenge to focus a lens on a rocking kayak, all while not losing the paddles.

I’m not even sure what kind of turtles these are but I think it is really funny how they all try to cram up on the little bit of wood sticking out of the water.

But enough of that, the good finds of the day were both adult and juvenile black-crowned night herons. The first two pictures are of the juvenile and the last 2 are of the adult plumage.

Lastly there was also the ever-present osprey. This one in particular had picked up a fish. They are not the greatest pictures but that wing-span is pretty impressive, isn’t it?

I have a feeling I wont have as much down time as I am imagining this week as all our friends and family have already started arriving, but I will be sure to post pictures of the festivities for those of you that can’t make it. And then next week we are off to the Riviera Maya in Mexico.

Stay tuned

I haven’t had much time to play with the macro lens for my new camera, so I set out to give it a try today. Lets just say I still need A LOT of practice.

First of all, I went back to a favorite spot of mine out on the Cape. I love it because you walk through a succession of different ecosystems. But before I could even get out of the parking lot, an older gentleman pointed me to this redtail sitting in a near by tree. Personally, I think the fella is giving me the evil eye.

You start out walking through a marsh. The natural history museum has nesting osprey here, with cute babies and all, with a webcam hooked up. So, if you’d like to see live feed of the osprey click here. I think there is currently 2 chicks.

On the board walkway through the marsh there were several flies boppin’ around, including the deer flies snipe fly like the one below.

I’m not sure what kind of flies the next two are, I’ll let you know once I have time to look them up…unless one of you already knows and wants to save me some time.

The next two images are of the same syrphid fly…I love how striking the red is on the abdomen.

And here is clever Kelley trying to get a picture of a dragonfly in mid-flight. I’m guessing by the time summer is over I will be better at getting pictures like this.

Next you walk into an upland wooded habitat. The first thing that caught my eye was this little blue buprestid (Agrilus cyanescens) who kept flashing its forewings.

Next in line was this little skipper pearl crescent (Phyciodes sp.).

Have you ever seen what looked like a spit wad on a plant and wondered what that was all about?

The froth is actually created by a little bug called a spittle bug nymph. I coaxed him out of the froth for a photo op…he’s on the right.

The spittle bug is a true bug with piercing-sucking mouth parts. They use their proboscis, which acts like a hypodermic needle, to puncture into the plant wall and suck up the plant juices. They remove so much water and carbohydrates that excess fluid is produced. Then, they bubble air from the tip of their abdomen into the liquid to produce the frothy nature of the spittle. And, as you might guess, the spittle hides the bug from predators and keeps it from drying out in the heat.

Lastly in the insect line-up is this parasitoid wasp in the Ichneumonid family and this honey bee.

Back to the birds. Every time I see common yellowthroats I can’t help but think that they are just too cute and curious.

Here is the striking male with his famous black bandit mask on his face.

And the female…

Oh, and I almost forgot…the last ecosystem that one encounters at the spot I often frequent is the ocean. As I made it over the sand dune to the water I spotted this little guy running across the sand with his one claw up in the air. But he got a little camera shy when I got up to him.

Great Black-Backed Gull (Immature)

Great Black-Backed Gull

Black-Bellied Plover

Black-Bellied Plover

Male Wood Duck

Pine Warbler eating a Damselfly